the Oscars

On Tuesday I went to the awards ceremony for the Help Desk Analyst of the Year. It was a spectacular event. I was super excited and pumped full of caffeine. I worked that morning and grabbed some comfort food (McChicken meal...mmm..."I'm loving it!") and headed over to the Holiday Inn at Metrotown.

When I walked through the doors the room was decorated like the Oscars. Black tie event. Lol - thank goodness I made the correct fashion decision in the morning and wore a comfy yet "professional" outfit. :-) I wasn't in suit mode and didn't want to appear as if I'm off to a job interview. The committee had asked the finalist to arrive a bit early so that we can get aquainted with others and get our question beforehand.

I was thrilled when I found out that each of us would get different questions. Ahem...yes...I believe in world peace and kindness to women and children... Seriously - it felt like a beauty pageant. We then signed waivers that would allow them to post our pictures, bios, etc on their websites and in the paper. Lol - that's right baby...Kimmi is going to be in the paper! Under what section?!? Who the hell knows. :-) I chucked and said to the photographer that he need to airbrush me well as I'm going to catch myself a man! He laughed and said that the only guys that would be reading this story would be geeks. Duh!!

Having had a can of coke (as Burnaby and North Van are still under water restriction - all beverages come in cans) with my McDonald's meal. I proceeded to pour myself a coffee...which later turned out to be 2. This would later turn out to be not a wise choice.

The main reason we were doing this event was that it's PR stuff for the organization. Realizing this I felt for them - as we're going through the same advertising/marketing struggles with our own Social Club. I was super nervous when it came to walk up. The agenda was that they would announce all nominees, introduce them one by one then call each of the finalists to the front separately and in alphabetical order. From there the MC would read a bio on us, we'd each give a speal about the company we represented, the MC would read us our question and then we'd answer it. Simple enough eh? ICBC had 2 finalists therefore I was counting on my partner in crime to do a lot of the ICBC stat stuff.

Chris - my coworker went up first. He's a good speaker and charismatic. I think it's funny that the 2 people selected from the Help Desk are former psychology majors. :-) Just goes to tell you that personality plays a big role in the techie world as well. Chris did his thing up there and I sat at my table wishing I could slow down my heart rate. I always get a blast of super stage fright before having to talk to any crowd. :-) Though I may seem smooth and calm when giving speeches, etc...deep down inside I just want to throw up. So I used refocusing techniques to gather myself. So what did I refocus on?! My need to go pee! After that it was just downhill. I could no longer concentrate and told my supervisor who was sitting next to me. He burst out laughing. This was super inappropriate as another finalist was up on stage and doing her thing. She was struggling already and we were making her feel worst with our giggling.

Then it came time for me to march up to the front. I walked by the 7 foot screen with my name blasted across it (ah...the glories of powerpoint). I should just be thankful that they didn't have an old picture of me pasted for all to see. :-) I was still giddy from trying to conciously work on not doing the got-to-go-pee-dance while standing next to the MC. The crowd was silent and when I looked over, the MC was short! There was a photo op and the photographer pointed at us to smile. I was taken off guard and must have made a funny face at the height difference as I bent my knees so that the MC and I were closer in height for the picture. Darn those high heels! The crowd laughed at my unconcious move. It's an ice breaker. I appreciated the laugh though as it made me feel more at ease. I didn't have anything prepared so just spoke freely. I thought I did well and it appeared as people were listening (that or they were secretly leaning forward to check their blackberries!).

The winner was announce at the end. Chris won and I came in second. I was super thrilled for him and for ICBC in general. We kicked ass! Both of us jumped up and down in excitement. When the MC asked for the envelope please...*drum roll*...we all smiled at each other and gave the other 2 girls a "good luck" whisper. When Chris' name was called out he was stunned and I was bubbling over with happiness. I think I might have pushed the girl next to him to one side in a mad dash to hug him and say congrats. :-) Then there was a flurry of flashes. We were blinded, someone rushed Chris forward to accept his award and the rest of us were pushed to one side so that we wouldn't be in the pictures. :-) Wow - this is a long post. Going to stop here. As you can tell I'm still pumped about the event and look forward to seeing the pictures when they are released.

Kim's Krazy Karts

On sunday I hosted (on behalf of my social club) a Go Karting event at TBC Indoor Racing. There were 85 participants and 12 teams. Chicky, Chris, Toshiki and Brian were on a team called "Kart" (yes...the creativity oozes out of them). The other teams had great names (such as Road Ragers, Dragon Driving School, etc).

The skill levels ranged from "new" drivers to those that brought their own race helmets. The age range was vast too. My youngest drivers were 14 and oldest were 50+. One team (the Power Rangers) consisted of 16 years old who were celebrating one of the driver's birthday (their mom was mooching off the club's event). Good thing she didn't have cake for him as I'm sure the other drivers would have raised an eyebrow to that.

There was a lot of organizing and time put into this event but I was REALLY happy with the results. I've received a lot of positive feedback and the club's image has gone up (which is part of the goal of this event - advertising for the Club). Things that went well and added icing to my cake:

• the pizza arrived on time (as I had multiple conversations with Panago last week about the delivery time and date - as Panago doesn't officially open till 11am but I needed 30 pizzas to be eaten by 11:15am). I was a very demanding customer and didn't take any of their crap. My conversation with them even stirred comments from coworkers about my assertive/aggressive mannerism. Lol...just part of being a dictator!
  
• All the participants arrived on time! I was actually flabbergasted to see that the majority of them were there before 11am (as the facility was not official open till then). I had spoken to the manager about letting "early" people in first. I turned out to be "late" (though I was technically 15 mins early)! This really struck a sentimental chord in my type A personality. :-)
• no one melted in the boardroom as it was small and getting warmer and warmer by the minute - thus making attention spans shorter and my ability to convey the necessary information harder
  
• Brian came to my rescue as there were no other Social Club executive members to help me out with the set up, food, drinks, etc. Brian is an executive member and made an awesome pizza box cutter.
  
• everyone coordinated they own driver changes without mishaps, collisions or arguments
• no one got seriously hurt. The only injury was from Pete's daughter who took a hard hit to her kart and then said her neck felt funny. She soon regressed to not being able to turn her head. I pulled her off the course and had her watch for the rest of the race from the stands as even the spectators on the floor were not safe from the karts!
  
• No one got black flagged and asked to leave. Yah! But many drivers were given lectures from the staff about aggressive behaviour. Some teams were out to win at all costs.
  
• Chicky's team came in second - which I didn't doubt at all. I figured they were going to be first but then I met the drivers of team "Drift Kings" and they turned out to be the guys from my old location (all professional drivers). Pete is roundy-bout driver, Jeff is a drag-race boy and the other 2 guys are motorcyle fanatics
• I didn't lose my voice from all the "talking" (more like screaming) that I did throughout the day. I'm really happy that there are people in the world that can whistle really loudy to get the attention of 85 people.
  

I took pictures from the event and have posted them here. I didn't post everything as most of the pictures are dim (due to a lack of an external flash). While shooting pictures I thought about how wonderful it would be to have an SLR. Especially when it came to taking action shots. I missed many spectacular crashes because my camera was trying to "focus" on the target.

pushing up

Just got back from my marketing class. As usual I was staring at my cell phone and wondering when the torture would end. :-) Just kidding - that's an exaggeration. Every once in awhile my little-brown-humorous-teacher gets WAY off topic (this tends to happen as the night progresses and as the number of students in the class "all of a suddenly" diminishes after the first break). In marketing we spend a lot of time discussing advertising - what works and what doesn't.

Tonight's mindless wondering brought us into the lingerie business. In her bantering I learned that Victoria Secret had bought out La Senza for $710 million this morning. Shares in La Senza soared and so did my consumer excitement. I was thrilled! This would mean that I can get those nice lotions that I like at Victoria Secret now without having to deal with the border line ups. The delusion came crashing down when my teacher said that Victoria Secret would keep La Senza as is (meaning they would not merge product lines) - boohoo!

The funny part of this whole conversation in class were her analogies. The events which lead up to this merger came out of a lawsuit against between the two companies. Back in March this year Victoria Secret was suing La Senza for a million dollars over the copyright of a "wireless push up bra". The companies went from enemies to lovers shortly after that. As Padma puts it: "Victoria Secret was a shark and La Senza said "hey...I'm a shark too! I just look different." So instead of trying to kill each other, why don't we go after all the other little fishes in the pond together?" Padma is full of wacky analogies. Maybe it's her foreign sense of humour that amuses me. Or her accent and facial expressions when she tries to imitate people or products. Brownies...got to love them! She's like my own little Thursday night Borat! show.

lazy long weekends

Enjoying the relaxing long weekend. I didn't do too much - well anything productive that is. I went to Frank's birthday on Friday night. He had it at the Banana Leaf in Kitsilano. I've never eaten at this location but the food was good and they had a party room which suited us well. After dinner we went to Rev's Bowling in Burnaby. The line ups were horrendous but we did manage to get a few lanes. Bowling was really fun - I managed to get near 100 each time. :-) Check out the birthday pictures.

The rest of the weekend was mostly dedicated to sleeping. It was Angelina's birthday on Monday as well. She turned 7 - what a big girl! On Saturday the kids came down and we got together with Betty, Hanif and little Michael for a game of poker. During poker we discussed pregnancy and birth (as Betty is getting closer to giving birth). Poor Chicky was sitting in the middle of the girls so he was bombarded with the gruesome details (nothing like 2 nurses and a pregnant woman to gross you out). The interesting part is that Betty's got a new game with her baby. When her baby sticks out, she pokes at the bulge on her belly and sometimes it pokes back! Lol - a bit freaky but cool at the same time.

assession

If you have not heard - Vietnam has been accepted as the 150th member of the WTO today. This was exciting news for me as I'm proud of my country of origin and like to hear positive news about its people or economy. Plus my parents close friends are all entrepeneurs in Vietnam and it will be good for their businesses now that the country's economy is improving. Now Vietnamese folks won't be known for their yummy Pho noodles and infamous poker playing skills (go Johnny! - World Poker Series). Lol - but what will this all mean later on? Will I still be able to go there and get a bowl of pho for $0.35?!? No...don't let the Dong catch up to the Dollar. "Third world" country status still has its novelties. :-)

give us an example of when...

Behavioral interviews: inescapable elements of the working world. I had my interview for the Help Desk Analyst of the Year award today. I felt that I was disoriented as many other things were happening at work today which had me distracted from the main event. Inevitably I went into the interview hungry and irritable - as I had missed lunch due to another appointment.

The interview was done by a panel of 5 judges. Each with their own cryptic question. I tried to answer as best as I could but I found myself sucuumbing to the use of "ums" and "uh" a lot. Not a great way to portray confidence. I was happy that none of the questions had a technical spin on it. I think the questions were the same for the other contestants. The real challenge was to invoke a sense of confidence and determination over the phone. The whole interview was done via teleconferencing. Fortunately or unfortunately they were not able to see my facial expressions.

After the interview I was informed that when I go to the seminar on November 21st, they would ask me another question for the audience to "experience" the process of the award selection. The silly part to all of this is that they will announce the provincial winner prior to the 21st. Therefore all the "losers" will still have to play the game and go through the motions of a "pretend" interview at the seminar. Yipee...not! It's like one of those WWF wrestling matches where the wrestlers knows who's going to "win" but they still have to pretend that they don't know and put on a show for everyone. I don't think I'll be selected as my counterpart finished his interview and sent me an email saying it went really well for him. I didn't share the same kind of enthusiam after mine. But I'm hoping that an ICBC person (him or I) do win as it would be a very prestigious recognition for our Help Desk. Putting us up to the "industry leaders" level!

kareoke girls

I went over to Carol's house today to fix her pc. I set them up on the internet and got them all the essensials such as torrents, msn messenger and burning software. The wireless connection was a bit tough to pick up in some parts of the house (cold spots). Baby wanted to be set up in MSN too as her classmates are all online. That's just crazy - I never realized how technologically advanced the next generation is. When I was 6, I didn't own a computer and definately didn't trade email addresses with my friends. After it was all set up, Baby sent her friends her first email. None of her friends were online though.

After playing on the computer, we monopolized the TV with some good old kareoke fun. Baby really likes some singer called "Trish". I don't think Trish is "known". But it beats singing kiddie songs. Her favorite song is "big big world" - I think we sang it 5X. Trish sings english, vietnamese and french songs. I like the cordless microphones though - makes "back up dancing" much easier! I don't know any of the songs so I'm her backup dancer! Baby's birthday is next week, she's going to be 7. I can't believe time has pass so quickly. It feels like only yesterday when we were sharing baby cherios. Now we're fighting over which song to sing to. Time is flying by. Before I know it we'll be discussing the latest fashion or her latest boyfriend.

meaning of life

This week's audio book was the Dalai Lama's "The Meaning of Life", excerpts from his lecture series. I thought the audiobook would be a nice change from my usual genre (self-help and thrillers). I found that not only did the audiobook was hard to understand (circular reasoning) but also contributed to my falling-asleep-at-the-wheel-syndrome. Don't get me wrong, I did learn much about Buddist philosophy and the meaning of the Karma, etc but I would probably recommend that this book be read instead of listened to. As some of the concepts are cyclic and normal comprehension is unfeasible.

Sort of related to the Dalai Lama...here's a personality test sent to me by a coworker that has quotes from the Dalai Lama. Take it and see what you're true inner self is like. I was pleasantly surprised with the answers. It's true - Chicky (to me) is "somone that you will remember for the rest of your life".

On a more fun note - I started another Dean Kootnz (my favorite author) book. I'm now listening to "The Husband". Much more entertaining as I'm at the part where the wife's kidnappers are going to chop off her fingers if the husband tells the detective that someone has kidnapped his wife. I think I enjoy the fictional audiobooks more as they don't require that much concentration and the most of the storylines are good. Unfortunately my only mode of listening to them is burning them to disk and loading them into the CD player. A bit of an inconvenience as after I listen to the audiobooks, I have ot store the CDs somewhere. The probability of me re-listening to an audiobook is minute therefore I need another form of media to store it in. I've got to figure out a way to hook up the iPAQ to the stereo system. That or get an IPOD and FM receiver. Ah...more gadgets...

5 bucks and I'm all yours

I received an automated voice message from Telus on my cell phone today. The electronic voice of the lady informed me that they have reviewed my last call center experience and are sorry that I was not happy with the service. That was an understatement!! So to make up for their slow response time - they are giving me a credit of $5 towards my next bill. I was thrilled! All evil thoughts aimed at them in the last couple of days have been dimished by the hopes of meager earnings.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

I hope you had a great day full of fun, food and sugar-rushes. I had a great time at work. As a department, we dressed in pirate outfits. Shelby got creative and designed/created a costume for herself and I. Adhering to our pirate theme, she was a pirate ship and I was a treasure chest. The effort she put in was astounding! Many people dressed up at work today. I think it's cause the Social Club (who hosts the Halloween Parade) is offering an IPOD as one of the prizes. :-) We're on our way to improving the club's image and participation levels for events. Hahhaa...they should be grateful to have me on their team! Modesty is not my middle name. I was happy to see many creative costumes as well. Check out the pictures here.

After work I lugged a 5kg pumpkin (someone gave it to me - it was beautifully carved...how could I resist!), my costume stuff, my potluck stuff and my regular (huge) bag back to my car. I park 4 blocks away from work. It was all up hill. I thought my arms were going to fall off. I'm still partially recovering from volleyball. As I panted and took rest stops, I contemplated buying a personal cart (like the one Tanya has). Imagine being able to strap your pumpkin and crap to it and just rolling the car back to the car. I'd be as cool as an airline stewardess. Where's the nearest Staples?!?

uh oh!

OMG! I came home from Superstore tonight and was packing away the groceries into the cupboards when KA says "you have big hole in your pants!" I didn't believe her so I went for a feel - yes...there definately was a draft in my crotch area. I can't believe I didn't notice it today! As my mind scrambled to think of how many times I could have flashed someone, I groaned as the memory of attending the pumpkin carving contest came to mind. There were managers at that contest. Ugh. I think I walked around the room a couple of times and bent over to take pictures of each pumpkin. Oh no...those poor folks behind me! If you want to see pictures of the pumpkins we carved - look here.

I sat most of the day so I guess no one noticed, including myself. I'm pretty sure Robyn would have told me my butt cheek was hanging out (if she saw). No wonder some of the guys were talking about my pants. I figured it was because I was wearing all white today and it was really cold out (winter weather). I was committing a fashion faux-pas, wearing white after Labour Day. :-) Ah - I'm sure they had a hoot. I was wearing a thong too so there was even more butt cheek popping out of my hole! Those guys! I'm more worried about one of the managers seeing - don't want to climb the corporate ladder as "Kim-the-ripped-pants-girl". Plus friends are suppose to tell you stuff like that...ripped pants, green stuff in teeth, farting too loudly, kicking you under the table when the person you've been gossiping about comes your way, etc. Oh well - I don't really care. I had a good laugh at myself and decided to share my amusement with the rest of you (I'm not shy about my own embarrassing moments). If you can't laugh at yourself then life would really suck.

volleyball tournament

Today I played in a 6 hour volleyball tournament. This was quite the feat as I have not played volleyball competitively (I use this term loosely) since highschool. It was a social club event therefore I was some what obligated to be there. Plus my partner in crime (Robyn) was one of the event organizers therefore we have a pack that we attend each other's events.

I was a bit tired this morning having spent the night watching 2 movies (Omen and MirrorMask) till nearly 4am. The tournament started at 9am. Being prepared (sarcastic), I woke up at the wrong time and realized that we're on daylight savings time. I didn't know what time the team was meeting at the dome either. :-) Thank goodness Robyn was on top of things and filled me in.

I knew I was in trouble when I walked into the Harry Jerome Sports Center on Barnet Hwy (it's that big white dome). That's where many volleyball teams or cyclists practice as the floor of the dome is sloped at a 45 degree angle (for the cyclists). Embarassing moments included:

• Running up the net during our practice round to do a practice block and realizing that I can't actually jump high enough to clear my fingers over the top of the net. The net was set at women's standard.
• Having an opponent say "stop the ball with your foot"; I was up at the net and looked down to see a ball spinning around at my feet. I didn't know where it came from as I was busy looking at other people on my own court. So I stopped it and kicked it back to the guy that was talking to me. I was then informed that the spinning ball determines who serves first. Ooops...
• Getting to experience the power of real league players. So scary!!! There were many times when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and have them not hit me with their serves. I thought wearing long sleeves would help - it didn't. The ball still burns when it hits you. I was all for mercy treatment from any good player. :-) No kneepads = no diving (for me anyways).
• Taking a service from a guy right in the face. I saw it coming fast and was only able to partially turn my face. I thought he broke my nose. I came off the court for a bit and my sub came on. The guy was nice enough to run over to see if there was damage.
  
• Meeting a (tall) chinse girl that liked to use our team mates as her own little shooting ducks when she served. We each took hits off our faces, chests, legs, heads and backs (as Sonya tried to turn and run the other way).
• Serious players are big on net violations. Basically touching the net and falling into it is a no-no. So is jumping upto block and having your fingers get tangled in the netting on the way down.
  
• My lack of physical endurance made playing more challenging. It's hard to run after the ball and bump it in the right direction if you can barely speak through each gasp of breath. :-) It's all about "calling" for the ball. But the adrenaline was pumping!
• I SUCK at serving. If I'm lucky enough to have my ball go over the net then it's in this beautiful high arch that give the other team time to calculate their volly and target spike zone. I think I lost a lot of points for my team each time I stepped up to serve!
  

As our team peered through the netting at the desirable "blue" courts and dreamed of a day when we would actually win a game and get to move out of the loser's circle, we consoled our spirits by telling ourselves that the other teams were too serious and were not having as much fun as we were. Over all I had an exhausting and FUN time. My team mates were very spirited (we drew a lot of attention as we laughing and goofing off). We may have been the losing team but we had a great time doing it. I have to add that there were no injuries suffered therefore I will probably sign up for this event again in the summer. How often does one get the opportunity to be slaughtered by Vancouver Vollyball league (division A), SFU and UBC volleyball players?! Alright!!!

Generations

On Saturday evening Chicky and I went to Joan and John's baby's one month party. It was held at Kirin in Coquitlam. I think Kirin is a favorite restaurant (different locations too) for Chicky's family and extended family. Many of the big celebrations are held at a Kirin of some sort.

The guest of honor was Colin. He is such an adorable little boy. Lots of hair on his head. Joan looked spectacular. She looked as she didn't even have a baby! :-) Ah - how does she do it?! While in Kirin we mingled with the many extended family members that were there. It was nice to see Brandon and the other kids. I mentioned to Chicky that there were 4 generations represented in that room. Amazing how many of the cousins our ages are having kids, etc. We found out that May and JP are expecting their second child next year as well. So that's 3 of Chicky's cousin's that are due in March and May. The nice part about all of this is that the babies are being born in sequences. So they'll have cousins who are exactly the same age of them to play with. May's little girl Avery is 2 years old and really cute. She's SO interactive and talkative. She tends to get a lot of attention. I want my kids to be verbal/interactive as well - which means we'll have to do a lot of talking and interaction as parents. Seeing all the kids makes Chicky and I discuss our own view of kids. We have differing ideas on how many kids we want. I want a BIG family (as I'm accustomed to having many people live in one house). He on the other hand prefers 2 kids max - he's more practical. We'll have to see what the future brings.

immunized for life

I'm proud to say that as of today I've been immunized against Hepatitis A & B for life. This is all thanks to Twinrix. Six months, 3 injections and hundreds of dollars later, I can now walk along the beaches of asia an not worry about getting a tummy ache from unsanitary (local) food.

the future is still not friendly

There are some things in life that you have a love-hate relationship with. I have that kind of dysfunctional relationship with FutureShop and Telus. Just when you thought the "future is friendly" - it's not!

Telus incident #2. I had come to realize that the feature bundle (Spark 7) has not been working well for me the last month or more. I had activated that bundle on the web after my last fiasco with Telus. Too ashamed to call them back, I chose the web method.

Chicky had tried to text message me a couple of times this week - as I have not spoken or seen him since the weekend. I don't have voicemail but the text messages had to work. So I tried it myself last night and it didn't work. Unable to send message was the error.

Bright and early this morning (before work) I called into the Telus to report this problem. I was advised by the agent that when I added the feature bundle on the web, the feature was not "turned on". It's still showing as "blocked" on their side and that they needed an agent to unblock it. I was confused; what's the point of using e-services if you still have to call in to confirm that your feature bundle was actually "turned on". Apparently adding a feature bundle was different from activating it. My assumption is that if I'm paying for it - it should better work! I was very annoyed by this tidbit. The agent tried to make light of the situation by saying that at least Spark 7 was on promo and free for the first 2 months - therefore they didn't charge me any money for the feature that wasn't working. Like that made me any happier. It only validates my theory that they are all incompetent! So the agent advised me that he unblocked the text messaging and that I should power cycle (turn on/off) my phone and test it.

I proceeded to:

• power cycle the phone
• send Chicky a test message - got an error message "unable to send"
• tried to send Robyn a text message - same error message
• had Robyn send me a message - it went through on her side but didn't arrive at my phone...lost in cyberspace I would suspect
• thinking that the network was busy...I power cycled again and went through sending Robyn a message and having her send me a message -> no messages arrived in my inbox
  
• I gave it 3 hours before calling back into Telus (time to cool off and think rationally)
  
• I was greeted with the frontline agent who couldn't help, she transferred me to "network support".
• I spoke to Karim at Network Support. I've learned through past experience that it's always helpful to document who you speak to, at what time and about what subject.
• Karim assured me that the agent in the morning didn't activate the text messaging correctly and that there were still options that were disabled.
  
• I was skeptical of his excuses.
• Karim said he'd have "data support" enable those options and told me to wait 20 mins, power cycle the phone and it would work.
• By this time I don't believe any of the "techs". I told him that I wanted to test the feature and keep him on the phone. He said he can't wait 20 mins on the phone as he has to take calls. Understandable...I work in a call center too...I know how hard it is to please customers.
• I waited 2 hours, power cycled my phone and tried sending text messages. Same error message.
• My frustration level went up 10 notches. I was ready to slaughter a call agent or network guy. I'd even settle for chewing out an innocent supervisor.
  
• I called Telus back at 8pm (12 hours from the initial call). They kindly put me on hold for 15 minutes due to high call volumes.
• I spoke to Catherine (the CSR) and asked her to patch me directly to data support. Doesn't work that way. I was patched to Network Support. Duh!
• Told Rav the network guy that I don't have time to mess around and that he'd better fix my problem. I gave him a brief description of the problem (unable to send or receive text messages) and told him to read the rest of the problem in Remedy (the data capture system they have at Telus).
• Rav was impressed with my Telus lingo. I was equally unimpressed with his speed of service and inability to run call history searches.
• He assured me that the feature ws turned on and that the problem might be my lack of text messaging knowledge. I was offended and became less patient.
• I had enough of his incompetence and told him that I want an incident number assigned to my problem and that data support should call me back. He asked me how I know the terminology, I told him I work in a call center and also spent a day job shadowing at Telus. So that means: don't mess with me.
• He called up data support and left me on hold. I waited. And waited. Finally he came back and said "it's fixed".
  
• Data support sent me a text message and I received it. Good.
• I was happy that things were working and that I didn't have to escalate the problem to management - as that would have been my next step.

By the end of it all I activated Spark 10 which also includes voicemail. So now you guys can sent me text messages or leave me a voice message. Good luck!

cubicle song

My sister sent me a song that was perfect. The Cubicle Song - listen to it here. The lyrics describes my work environment. I live in a cubicle world. If you have not had the pleasure of working in a cube, then you will not know the trials and tribulations associated with it. By the way - I don't have one of those fancy cubes with high walls for semi-privacy. The walls are low enough so that we can all see each other's 19 inch monitors. Plus I can touch all 3 walls while sitting in my chair! It's not a cube...it's a cell...complete with a warden. :-)

I saw this cartoon - it's funny because it's TRUE! Our Guildford Corporate Center (GCC...aka "Telephone Claims")is our largest call center. All the cubes on the 3rd floor have their own "address" which includes a desk number and street/avenues name. So it would be like telling someone that you reside at 3176 25th Street. What's even more hilarious (or not) is that all the rows have the signs hanging down from the ceiling so that you know which street/avenue you're walking down. I've got to get a live picture of that place for you guys. What is the corporate world coming to?! I like the new concept of pods (low cubes that face each other) - but due to amount of people and lack of space, we'll never have that. There are those at GCC that have no permanent desk. They come into their shift and sit at any desk that is available. This is only possible because this center is open 24/7 (they are the "dial-a-claim" crew). :-) Because of this particular center - my own department has to be 24/7 as well to support them! Sucks to be those who have to be on the graveyard shifts!

mahjong

Do you ever get a bit obsessed with something? I go through this on a regular basis. If it isn't movies, plants, hair products or gadgets then it's computer games. I'm back into playing Mahjong solitaire. Lately I've crawled into bed with my laptop, read everyone's blogs, write my own then play some mahjong. Since it's webbased - I thought I'd download a copy for the laptop so that I can play when I'm not connected to the internet. Another computer game that I sometimes get hooked on is Sims. It's like playing house with computerized characters.

So what am I doing at home on a Thursday night? It took almost 2 hours to drive home from work (again - was the same yesterday) and I was falling asleep in the car (again). There's so much construction in Coquitlam and the movie that they're filming in Port Moody (Aliens vs Predator 2) has a lot of the roads closed down. I took a different route home. My inability to concentrate on the road became worst - I had to pull over to a Starbucks and get some coffee and fresh air. That rejuvenated my senses and I was able to make it the rest of the way home without killing someone or myself. Good thing I'm driving a big car! Lol - watch out all you little-car-drivers! When I got home, I gobbled down dinner and made an executive decision. I prefer being lazy and will pay for the consequences later. :-) It's all about INSTANT gratification with me. Attendance is mandatory in my course therefore I will have to come up with a "creative" excuse to send to my instructor tomorrow. This is the best part about being school that all of you are missing out on - the art of making up excuses for everything! I forfeited an assignment (that I didn't do and therefore reinforced my decision to stay home - why bother going when I have nothing to hand in!). For that I will have to do really well on the next 2 assignments (to make up for this one). Lol - it's a good thing I work well under pressure.

ZFX

So if you have not been tuned into Z95 lately - now is a good time to start. The ZFX contest is now over $79,000. Wow - that's a LOT of free money! The phone lines will open up tomorrow at 8am and they will stay on the air until there is a winner. So if you hear the ZFX sound and know what it is (this is for Frank!), call 604-280-9595 and be a winner. Imagine what you can do/buy with that kind of money?! ;-P I would splurge it all - forget about being a responsible consumer. I would indulge in spontaneous spending and engage in buyer's remorse afterwards. I like the emotional roller coaster ride associated to shopping! I am a product of the media. :-)

friends

I read an article in the 24 paper this morning about friends. The writer was talking about the definition of friendship. She compared people who seem to have thousands of friends (also listing a few celebrities who have ridiculous amount of friends). She then asked what the definition of a friend is. So I went to dictionary.com and here's what it says:

"...a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard."

The article generated conversation between Robyn and I in regards to who we considered friends. Robyn is a social butterfly and makes friends everywhere she goes. I don't engage in that behaviour but tend to be more select with who I show interest in. I'm quite content with the circle of friends that I have. I would rather know more about less people then less about more people. If you are reading my blogs - consider yourself one of my close friends as we share a common interest....ME! :-P

applying my knowledge

Every once in awhile I'm thrilled by the prospect of applying my knowledge at work to home life. I like what I learn but sometimes feel that it's impractical knowledge. We have the new media pc and wanted to activate the wireless connection so that we can surf the web while watching TV. That being said, Michael installed the wireless card and waited for me to configure it. I came strolling by and he asked me to make the wireless connection "work". I laughed and said that he would have to call up the wireless router and get the WEP from it. I don't broadcast my SSID therefore you need all the settings for things to work. He didn't know how to call up the router. I said I'd think about it. As I walked towards the computer room with an armload of stuff to sew (tonight is "fix stuff" night) I remembered that I don't remember the IP address for the router. I sat infront of the computer for a few moments trying to figure out how to activate the router. I didn't even know what the router's name is! I thought about working on my sewing stuff and doing this later. Then the answer hit me. Duh...the router IP is visable through the default gateway. Don't worry if you didn't understand that - I'm just being a geek (and you're even geekier if you understood what I'm talking about!). I ran an "ipconfig /all" and got the information I needed. From there I sent the information to Michael through MSN. We're pretty bad at home. We all IM each other from different rooms in the house. It's like that Robin Williams movie "RV".

movie mania

On Sunday Chicky and I got up later (as we didn't get to bed till 4am). I had lunch while Chicky took some pictures of his car. He had some modifications done on it recently. After that he wanted to catch a the 1pm show of The Prestige. We hussled over to the theatre to watch it. It was a good movie - made me want to go see a real magic show again. I really enjoyed the one in Hawaii.

When we got back from the movies, Carol and them were over. We watched Over The Hedge with Angelina (as Michael wanted to demonstrate the power of a USB key). Carol has the same media pc set up at her house and wanted to see how our system differed from hers. They have better sound quality though as Minh has wired his house souly for kareoke (4 large, 500amps each, surround sound speakers, 5 subs, etc). We think that he secretly wants to be a kareoke king. :-) They even have wireless mics! Lol - some sales guy even tried selling Minh a mic headpiece so that he can dance and sing at the same time (the ones that pop stars use). He was REALLY temped by it but too many people teased him so that's why I think he didn't get it. Watch out Justin Timberlake - Minh is on the move!

After Angelina's movie we had dinner. Chicky wanted to rent a movie - not that we haven't been watching movies non-stop since Saturday. We went out to find Omen but ended up getting the Lake House. Keanu Reeves - not a great actor but this role suited him A total chick-flick. :-) I can't wait for Halloween though - looking forward to watching scary movies!!!

new digs

On saturday night we went over to Charlene and Scott's place for dinner. Charlene cooked some really good mediteranan food. I was very impressed. Our girl is so domesticated now! Scott is an excellent host and was always attentative to our needs - making sure we had something to drink or eat. Their house is lovely and has an interesting piece of art in the eating area. It makes a great conversational piece. Kind of like a Rorschach (inkblot) image. Each of us saw different things - though no one saw what I saw. :-) I've got a vivid imagination. All that movie watching wasn't for nothing afterall!

After Charlene's place we went back to my house and watched Fearless (downloaded). Michael bought us an HP entertainment/media pc. It's like Tivo. Now we can record live TV and play it back later. The remote is a bit complicated but we're getting use to it. My parents could barely load a CD into the DVD player. Now seeing the computer tower next to the TV - they just turn the other way and watch the TV in the other room (or their own room). After Jet Li' Fearless, Chicky turned on 16 Blocks (another movie) but I had fallen asleep then. I was pretty tired as we didn't get back to Chicky's place till 3am Saturday morning (after his company party) and I had to get up at 9am to take my car back to Coquitlam for a maintenance check. Little sleep catches up with me on the weekends and I end up sleeping in as much as I can.

golf course fright night

On Friday night I went to Chicky's company's Halloween party. It was held at Mayfair golf course in Richmond. We didn't end up dressing up but there were many people there in some nice costumes - lots of pirates! Which was great as I got a lot of costume ideas from them. There was even one that looked a lot like Captain Jack Sparrows! :-) How creative. Chicky and I tried our hands at winning 10 grand but failed miserably. The game was to putt a hole in one on this man-made putting green. Of course they didn't make it easy and made the green have slopes, etc.

After that we made our way into the lounge and picked up a few pieces of finger food and chatted with his friends. I couldn't resist taking a look at the door prizes - nothing spectacular. I had my eye on the Disney Princess pencil set though - figure not many people would want it. There were the usualy array of house hold items, liquor and gift certificates. Nothing that really perked my interest. After munching on some food we went into the main ballroom to play some casino games. The company set up a pretend casino and everyone was given pretend money ($10,000 to start). I did fairly well at the poker table and ended up taking out 3 of Chicky's friend's wives. I felt bad so I gave them some of my money to play elsewhere. Then the poker shark, aka Joyce, sat down next to me and smiled develishly. Joyce is Michael's friend that works for Ritchie Bros now. She said she was there to take all my money. I laughed and told her to play at another table. She didn't. :-) I had played poker against Joyce the week before and she won all my money. I pulled out of the game when she proclaimed that she had enough money to go shopping the next day. :-)

It was a fierce game but fun nevertheless. Because the money was fake - some of us weren't taking it as seriously. Joyce had the dealer wrapped around her fingers and she dealt some of the games. We had 8 people at the table - the majority of them were good friends of Chicky's. No matter how many times Joyce lost all her chips - she would go away and come back with a handful to play again. I had an asian dealer play for me at one point. Our table was being pretty rowdy. Joyce was dealing, the dealer was sitting in her chair playing for her. Another dealer (on his break) was playing for one of the other girls at the table and the asian dealer was playing for me. Secretly I think all 3 dealers were seeing who was better at guessing the cards. I was pretty nervous when my dealer-guy threw in handfuls of chips at every turn. I kept asking - "are you sure?!". He laughed and said "don't worry". I trippled my earnings because of that game. Wow - if only that money was real! The objective was to get lots of money so that you could bid on the door prizes - no one wanted the cup and tea bag set. It was cool though - the dealers that lost told their girls to come "see" them at their tables (I think that's where they hand out chips to the girls). If you were a girl - it worked in your favor as all the dealers were guys and they didn't care too much on how many chips they were giving out. Some girls really milked it. Even Joyce pretended not to know how to play so that the dealer would "coach" her on each of her hands (while he dealt!).

After poker and beating Chicky out (that was the most important part) we went for late night dinner at Number 9 restaurant with Joyce. She's so small and eats very little. The great part is that she speaks fluent cantonese. So much easier going to a chinese restaurant with someone who can speak the language.

costume ideas

Halloween is fast approaching and the hunt for a "good" costume is on. I like to make my own costumes as it's more fun and economical. I've already perused the isles of Value Village, dollar stores, Zellers and SuperStore. I wasn't inspired. I'm lending my Marge Simpson costume to a coworker this year. For work we're going as a "group costume". This year's theme is pirates. Not too hard - all the props were at the dollar store.

I talked to Frank tonight and he had the idea of being Jack (from Jack in the Box). After some internet research I suggested we do a whole fast food theme. Since I LOVE Macdonalds - I'd be willing to be Rotten-Ronnie himself! It'd be so funny! Now to convince the crew...

winter preparations

I've been freezing my butt off these last few days. Don't know about you guys but I have low tolerance for coldness. Yes - I did grow up in Saskatoon (land of the snow). On top of that the inside of my house sis freezing too. We all have to sit under blankets when watching TV and my most of us have to wear slippers! Tonight I cruised over to Superstore (in search of a Halloween costume) and ended up buying a space heater instead. Now my room will feel just like Mexico!

Other winter preparations include seeding my lawn wednesday night. I started off doing it old-school with my hand and "sprinkling" the grass seeds. When that novelty wore off, I broke out my trust Rona spreader-cart and poured the 10lbs of seeds into it. I always have a great time with that little cart - adjusting the spreading radius with the lever, etc. I had the day off today and when I let Muimui out to go pee - I saw that the birds were eating the grass seeds!!! All that seeding to prevent weeds and now the birds had a big buffet. Now I want to go out and buy fertilizer and cover the lawn with that. Maybe that will deter the birds from eating the rest of the grass seeds.

Jerry

Do you ever think that sometimes you over look people in your life? Those that do not have a direct connection to you? Or those that you deem to be less worthy in some way? Well - that's what I feel like when I think about Jerry.

Who is Jerry? :-) If you ever drive on Hastings Street. Jerry is the old man that stands on the corner (well - more on the meridian) of Hastings Street and the Cassiar tunnel. He's been a part of my daily commute for the last 5 years. I see him everyday, rain or shine, on the way home from work (North Van). Now that says a lot as it was over 6 years ago that I first saw him. I never really paid much attention to him until this year. Yes - I'd have the same kind of curiosity as any other on-looker. He was a pan handler and usually I try to avoid that type (you know...don't make eye contact...pretend to play with the radio buttons as he walked by, etc). Over time I developed more courage and started waving to him as he walked by. He never came over to ask for money - which reinforced my waving behaviour. The "good" thing about him is that he picks up the garbage on the street and usually waves at the vehicles that drive on and off Second Narrows bridge. When I stopped working in North Vancouver, I didn't see him very much (only once in awhile when I'd have to travel on Hastings in the middle of the afternoon or something like that). But this year I drove more (being bad and not using my bus pass). For Valentine's Day I had made little cookie gift bags for everyone at work. On the way home I stopped as per usual at the light. I saw Jerry doing his usually parade up the meridian and thought to myself: "he's such a nice bum". So I rolled down my window and offered him a bag of cookies and wished him Happy Valentine's Day. He was really happy and expressed his gratitude. The light was still red so we chit chatted a bit. I asked him for his name - as I felt it was rude to be refering to him as the bum on the Cassiar Tunnel. It's a good thing that I don't harbour any inhibitions and can ask strangers all kinds of things. He asked me what nationality I was and I said Vietnamese - so he mustered up a mangled "cam on" (thank you) in Vietnamese; I grinned and chuckled. It was very sweet that he could come up with the phrase, I was touched, and so began our relationship (I'm not saying we're best buddies now but we do talk more often then before). I told him that there were a few times that I didn't see him on my way home from work. I was genuinely concerned as he's old and I've seen my share of cars that have flown over the meridian. Who knows - he might become a casualty of a car accident. He sports a reflective vest on cloudy/rainy days - I think someone gave it to him. Jerry said he has cancer and that he was sick for a period of time so he couldn't come out to say "hi" to everyone. I think in some ways Jerry has very little family or friends so he enjoys the attention he gets from the drivers. Those weeks that he wasn't there - an intruder came. I call him an intruder because he was a punk-ass-kid-pan-handler-with-a-North-Face-backpack (I can't even afford a backpack like that!!) who was pretty aggressive (ie. knocking on my window and holding out his empy MacDonald's cup for "donations"). I really dislike those types as I figure they are all fakes. I've seen the documentaries - where a midclass kid would make tons of money pan handling!

Last week I was passing Jerry by and gave him my big chocolate chip cookie (still in its original packaging) and he happily stuffed it into his backpack. I smiled, waved and wished him a good weekend. Jerry - the not-so-well-known Cassiar Tunnel icon. Now you guys know him. ;-)

paper airplanes

At work today we kicked off the United Way 2006 campaign. Our company thoroughly supports this non-profit organization. In the past the company would coerce you into donating but in the recent years they have been more laid back about it. I always like the annual kick off. It involves a whole wack of people on multiple levels throwing paper airplanes onto a target on the first floor. We have to "purchase" the airplane paper (basically making a donation) then we get to fold them into what might resemble an airplane. I discovered that I have very BASIC paper-airplane-folding skills. I saw some of the people beside me and marvelled at their aerodynamic forms. :-) And that's why I'm not an engineer! I had my handy dandy camera with me so I took some quick pictures of the crowd and of course - the big TOSS. :-) It was really cool to see hundreds of paper airplanes in different colors float down from various floors. I was on the 4th floor and one of my planes (the chubby one with too much wing span and not enough body) floated onto the 3rd floor balcony and got stuck. The good thing is that my other 3 designs made it to the ground on the 1st floor (though miles away from the target).

On a side note. Have you seen the new campaign posters? They're hilarious! It's probably inapropriate to laugh at because they carry a "message". Anyhow - my favorite is GI-Joe standing over Barbie with a bat (message was about domestic violence). I think this years campaign is targeted at kids as all the posters have this sort of theme to them (toy figurines). It's like those porcelien figures on the Life Network (you'll know what I'm talking about if you watch that channel)...the lady with the cats or the guys with his hands sawed off.

no excuse!

I went to a seminar this afternoon. It was a bit of a last minute thing. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I'm being nominated for the "Help Desk Analyst of the Year" award. It's quite ironical as I'm in the midst of trying to escape the department. It's a program that the Help Desk Institute (HDI) has been sponsoring for awhile. What does it all mean? It means that every company that is affiliated with HDI (which is an international company) is allowed to nominate who they think their best agent is. The agent then competes against other agents in the province to win the provincial award. After that they compete against other provinces to win the Canadian award. Finally they get to go to the states to compete for the North America distinction. So realistically the only reason why I agreed to jump through all the hoops is that this could possible lead to an all-paid trip to Vegas (staying at the Madalay Bay) to compete in the North American trials. Apparently it's a pretty prestigious title to win. :-) The thought of the Vegas competition is a bit unnerving though. Nothing like being videotaped during your testing (on both technical and customer service skills) and then having that video blown up across 50 foot screens so that 2500 attendees can "critique" you. :-) Talk about pressure! But realistically I have to make it through the provincials before I can even think about that. I'm dreading the day they call me for the preliminary tests!

So what was I talking about before?! Oh yah - going to the seminar. My supervisor thought it would be a strategical move if I attended one of the seminars put on by HDI. The keynote speaker at today's seminar was Jay Rifenbary. He's a motivational speaker and very dynamic. His topic was "No Excuse! An Action Plan for Success". His key points were core values and personal accountability. Many of the things he said hit home - such as you are the person who decides how you feel/act or feel at any given moment. You can't blame anyone but yourself for your lack of personal or professional success. I felt very alive and energertic after the seminar. Ready to conquer the world!

Thoughts to ponder about from the seminar:

• What do you want to be remembered for?
• Why do people follow you?
  

haunted walk

On Friday night I went to the Burnaby Village Museum for their Haunted Deer Lake Walking Tours. I went with my coworkers and Tanya. I would give this tour a two thumbs down - like under my butt kind of "down". I was quite disappointed in the low budget production. I was mislead to believe that the tour would involve walking around the lake and listening to ghost stories. What we got instead was a historical lesson on 5 old building in the museum. Interesting but not worth $16/person. I'm sure these "facts" can be found in a book or on their website. Some of my coworkers tried to escape the painful narration (by these 2 old ladies) but we didn't let them out of our sight. What I do recommend instead is the Vancouver Haunted House tour - much better narration and better locations too. The funny part was at the end of the walk, the ladies provided us forms in which we can provide feedback on. Unfortunately for them - I'm a pretty critical person who is not concerned about being a polite citizen and providing fake feedback. :-) My coworker and I gave them "truthful" ratings and wrote in the comments section. They wanted feedback - so they got it!

procratinator

I've been feeling a bit burned out lately. Actually - I'm almost at the crispy state. Time to take me out of the oven. It seems that every weekend there's something happening. This week has been a bit harried. I've got a midterm on Thursday (which I have dedicated zero hours to studying for), a company Halloween party on Friday (which I haven't made any costume for) and Charlene's potluck on Saturday (which I do desire to create a dish from my own kitchen instead of the getting something from the master chefs at Save-On-Foods). To top it off I have homework, an oil change on saturday and the big brain masher is applying for another job on wednesday. I'm going to dibble into the world of education and apply for an instructor position at ICBC. It's only a 6 month assignment but it's something...anything to get off phone work for a bit. I've become a bit resentful of my job as of late. The knowledge and experience I've gained is unquestionably more valuable than many of my other jobs that I've held. Yet the everyday quirks are starting to drive me nuts. I can work with rigid people. For goodness sakes - I'm probably the most rigid and "box-like" characters in the group! Yet I yearn for the luxuries of variable lunch times or break time, not having to tell my supervisor where I'm going and why every minute of the day ("I'm going to the bathroom" - my favorite after-lunch phrase) and not having to work shift work. As much as I love starting work anywhere from 6am to 12pm - it gets a bit tedious over time. I don't know if I will qualify for the position though as my teaching experience is pretty minimal (kay - let's be honest..it's zip). Doesn't hurt to try though. Worst case scenerio is that I have to continue being a call agent. With my track record - you never knows what happens. I've been all over the board in terms of "career" choices. :-) If you told me 5 years ago that I would be an IT tech I would probably have laughed in your face - as I was a "therapist" then and didn't forsee any future unles it involved psychoanalyzing people. Plus I thought IT was for geeks! I'm totally NOT a geek. Diagnosis: self denial. But here I am today - pretending to know a lot about nothing. :-)

from bus/trains to automobiles

Well the day has come. After fullfilling my one year contract with WestCoast Express - I have been released from the shackles of the commuter-commonwealth. As of November 30th - my bus pass is over. Realistically I've been driving almost daily the last month or so. I have justified this with the idea that gas prices have gone down significantly and I can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on gas. :-) I do seem to forget that while I fill up at the pump, my account is automatically debited for a pass that I don't use. On the bright side - I drove out to Abbotsford on Saturday night (on my way to Carol's house) and got some gas for 81.4 cents!!! That's absolutely spectacular considering the "best" price in Coquitlam right now is 98.5 cents. Carol says it's only that strip of Abbotsford (near her house) that has cheap gas - everywhere else is the same as Coquitlam. It's a good thing she lives so close to them as she drives a gas-guzzler as well.

so happy together

Congratulations to Charlene and Scott who got engaged at the end of September. They have tentatively booked their wedding for middle of March next year. :-) Too bad as I will be in Malaysia then but I'm super happy for the two of them. Looking foward to the wedding!

big birthday bashes

Tonight Chicky and I went to my coworker's son's 1st birthday party. It was held at the Riverside Banquet Hall. His son's birthday party was bigger than my wedding will ever be! There were 350 guest, videographer, photographer, DJ and an open bar. :-) Some people splurge on the strangest things.

So we started off the day late as we had a poker game the night before that lasted till 1am then the 4 of us decided that it was a good time for congee. Late night congee at Green Hut it was then! After Green Hut - Chicky and I were recharged with food so we weren't sleepy anymore. We decided it was Dynasty Warrior time. We didn't turn off the PS2 until 7am. By this time I've been awake for 26 hours straight. I got up at 1pm and relized that we didn't have a gift for Justin. After indulging in some left over lunch and a few rounds of Dynasty Warrior - we headed to the mall in search of a good gift for a 1 year old kid. We ended up at Zellers. Chicky and I were awed by the many interesting toys available to kids these days. I was more interested in the Vtech learning toys while Chicky was into the dragon models. I think we will have conflicting interests in what our children will play with. After 20 minutes of walking the isles - I ended up picking a big Tonka dump truck. If nothing else - Justin can sit on it. It's the most durable toy. The Fisher Price stuff was in the right age range but the plastic looked flimsy.

The birthday party officially started at 6pm. My white coworkers arrived at 5:45pm. I got the "inside" scoop and was told that it would probably start late (Indian time). Chicky and I got there at 7:30pm - after taking a detour to the Riverside Ballroom (where another East Indian function was, we felt silly standing at the door to a wedding with our birthday gift in hand and trying to figure out if I recognized anyone in the room). When we walked into the birthday party - I was blinded by the videographer's light. I saw the camera and saw the receiving line and immediately went to hug my coworker and his wife. The party was pretty fun. It even had a pinata. The theme was circus and clowns so all the tables had balloons and popcorn. We really enjoyed the popcorn machine. The only downside is that dinner didn't actually start till 11pm. By this time everyone was hungry and some of the guests had already left. I basically grabbed my food, gobbled it down and left (within 20 mins). :-) There was so much Indian music that after 6 hours of sitting infront of the speaker - I swear I could sing some of the songs (as the DJ repeated many of the music videos over and over again). What I really like was everyone's clothing - so colourful! Many beautiful fabrics and jewlery too. Makes me want to buy a sari too - if only they were "affordable". :-)

poker stars

On Friday night Chicky and I went to play poker with Michael's friends. One of his friends was hosting a tournament at his office. The friend turned out to be Jason Low - an old friend of Cindy's. I laughed as I seem to run into Jason everynow and then - the last time I saw him was when he came over to the house. There were 18 players and we knew half of the group - all friends of KA and Michael. Basically their whole bridal party was there. The game was fun because there was no buy-ins (so basically the maximum amount you could lose is $5). We played at Jason's office - he's a financial advisor so I thought that it was funny he was hosting a tournament in his office. I guess he could "advise" us when it's time to quit and cut our losses! The good thing about having your own office is that there's so much room to do stuff - we played in his presentation room. Basically locked the office and set up shop for the evening. One of the people there was Chicky's coworker. She's a friend of Michael's and just started with Ritchie Bros. She was doing a lot of trash talking at the table and won the first game. She wants in on the company game that Chicky plays in on Friday nights - he's too scared to take her as she's a pretty agressive player. :-) We invited her to come to one of our "family" games. We found that Chicky, Michael and I didn't take the game very seriously. The skill level varied - from people who never played before to the sharks-in-hiding. We didn't want to be rude and take their money the first time we came. Plus Jason was scarying everyone with talk about having played one of our "family" games and barely surving it. It's going to be a poker weekend though. We have poker night at Michelle's house on Sunday (after the turkey dinner) and on Monday night (my house - after our turkey dinner). My house should be fun as the whole family is going to be here (meaning 14 core players). Some days I think we have an addiction.

warrior in training

So my sister and my niece stayed over at the house on the weekend as Minh was out of town. Angelina and I amused ourselves with video games, computer games and cartoon channels. The funny thing is that we share a genuine interest in all 3 things (especially the cartoons!).

I broke out the PS2 and she set it up. For a 6 year old she's pretty proficeint with electronic devices. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she's exposed to many electronic things daily. I don't know any other 6 year old that has her own laptop (VTech), pc and tv/dvd room. Isn't it great to be an only child, only grandchild on our side of the family and to have young parents with lots of friends?! Lol - many aunts and uncles with disposable incomes! We figure she'll be a computer programmer or something geeky like that when she grows up. I popped in the game and started it. Angelina was comfortable on her pillow, had one of the controllers in her hands and was ready to play. I couldn't figure out how to start the game. I had one of the "fancier" controllers (wireless) and was trying to figure out if the problem was with the USB adaptor, the controller or me...it was me. :-) Baby (Angelina's family nickname) was already navigating through the menus and I was a bit confused by the screen changes. It gave me a false sense of hope that my controller was actually working - so I continued to press buttons. Took me a few seconds to realize that Baby had the first player controller which meant she was the one doing the screen changes. :-) Ah - how can you tell I don't play PS2 often? I finally gave up with wireless controller and negotiated taking turns with Baby on her character. Dynasty Warrior is one of those "kill-everything-in-sight" kind of games so it doesn't take much skill - just a LOT of button pressing. After awhile Baby and I started really enjoying the game. We were cheering each other on and I was teaching her how to use the "map" in the top right hand corner of the screen - not that I'm qualified to teach her how to navigate through these games. Baby found that she wanted to play more and didn't want to participate in the whole "sharing" bit - so we were struggling over who got to use the controller. Thank goodness Michael came home from work and brought out another controller that plugged in for me. :-) Now Baby and I could play together. Chicky came over the next day and found himself dualing Baby for maximum number of kills. The game is addicting. Chicky and I played on it and nearly missed his family dinner. But in it's defence - playing PS2 is much cheaper than going to the movies!

The other night I found myself bored and procrastinating so I fired up the PS2 and tried to level up my character in the game. Before I knew it, it was midnight and I had to stop - not because I was worried that I needed more than 4 hours of sleep before work but because my hands/fingers were so cramped that they hurt. Lol - guess what I'll be doing this weekend?!

"so others may live"

On my way home today I stopped by the pier to look at the Korean battleships that have been docked there for the last 2 days. I have to admit that the reason I decided to stop by is that Lonsdale Quay was full of Korean sailors. :-) Mmm...men in uniform! Lol - if only they were older...some looked like they were barely 18. Having watched The Guardian movie on the weekend, I've had a mild interest in the naval forces. The movie really glorified the life of a US coast guard rescue swimmer. When a ran a Google search for a hyperlink to the movie I found an article that said that there were 18 real coast guard rescue swimmers, 4 Olympic swimmers and a couple tri-atheletes in the movie. How cool is that?! I really enjoyed the training sequences - very detailed. The movie was a bit too long though - approximately 2.5 hours long - which isn't so bad except we saw it on a week night and I work super early (bad combo). Oh well - who needs sleep anyways!

nutrition know-how

So my first case study for my class is on MacDonald's - which is appropriate cause I'm a die hard fan of the restaurant. I am proud to say that I can't live without it! :-) I ran a Google search on MacDonald's - in a desperate attempt to get "inspired" for my paper. Instead I found the nutrition calculator and wanted to find out how many calories I eat in an average week. I usually cheap out and get the $3.99 meal (Junior Chicken sandwich meal). Eventhough it was nearly 1000 calories in that meal (an average female eats about 2400 calories a day), I'm not deterred. I will continue with my rituals and pay for it later on in life. :-) If you see me pounding my fist against my chest and holding my breath every so often - you'll know why.

storming the crack shack

This morning Chicky and I went out to play some paintball at Panther Paintball in Langley. There were 18 of us playing (which is pretty good considering we had people drop out at the last minute). It was my first time playing paintball so I was a bit nervous. We had various skill levels in our group. Everything from people who have never picked up a gun in their lives (one of the other girls) to an real ex-marine (one of my coworkers). Chicky and I had a great time. After the first game everyone figured out right away who was "good" and who wasn't. Chicky and Mike (the ex-marine) instantly became "targets". For the most part Chicky and I played on opposite teams (we couldn't resist the idea of shooting each other in the head!).

There were many types of playing fields. We had a private party so we could choose which fields we wanted to play in. I brought my camera with me - like always - and the Ref said he would take pictures with it. I was thrilled as I didn't know how I was going to run, carry my gun AND take pictures! :-) Check out the pictures when you have time. The best scenerio game was "cops vs crackheads". I was a cop and Chicky was a crackhead. Crackheads had to defend this crack shack and couldn't leave it till the Ref gave the signal (which was to yell "crackheads leave the shack"). The point was for the cops to storm the shack, kill all the crackheads or steal their bottle (which was in the middle of the shack). Crackheads had to stay in or near the crack shack until they got the signal - then they had to rush out, kill as many cops and try to touch the "get away" car (a beat up car in the field). For cops - my team sucked...so much friendly fire! I got hit twice in the back by some idiot who had set up shop behind a tree as I was trying to rush forward. Had to yell back at them that I was on their team!

What I learned on the field:

• only SOME people play mercy (Chicky was nice enough not to shoot one of the girls at point blank) while I ran into other people who wanted to empty their rounds on me at point blank!
• hiding behind a barrel is NOT a good idea (actually hiding behind anything only gets you pinned in - learned the hard way)
• getting hit in the neck REALLY hurts (I yelped and fell over - thus disclosing my position and getting nailed a couple of more times while trying to stand up with my hands raised in surrender)
  
• getting hit in the face hurts too...wait...so does getting pummeled in the back, arms and legs (as you can tell I was really INTO the game)
• worst hit was in the face and having the paintball exploded into my mouth vents - this caused me to get a mouthfull of paint...ewww!!
• the gun was really heavy and after a few simulations I felt that I was better off leaving it behind and just running for my life!
• being someone spotter means covering them and not jiggling your gun trying to figure out why it's not firing balls :-) After that - only the girls wanted me as their spotter!
  
• in my defence - I had a defective gun (they cleaned it out once but then the paintballs exploded inside of it again)
• I did get Chicky cornered though and fired multiple rounds at him (unsuccessfully though) but in my intense concentration on killing him - I forgot that there were other players on the field and got killed myself.
• breathing with your mouth causes your mask to fog up and then you're at a real disadvantage (then again I can't aim right even when I can see properly!)
  

the EA experience

Tonight Kenny gave Tanya and I a tour of his workplace (EA - Electronic Arts). It's a very interesting place to work at. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the building so I can't show you all the techie stuff. Kenny said that we couldn't go into sensitive areas of the building (game development) but could basically look through the doors.

The facility boasts:

• an interactive console at the entrance to enter your name and info (so that the security guards can print you out a personalized visitors pass)
• live orchids at the majority of the seating areas (I couldn't resist checking for myself)
  
• full sized outdoor soccer field, basketball court and beach volleyball court
  
• indoor basketball court, yoga studio (with Kinesis machines), dance studio and a weight room that could rival any FitnessWorld location
• standing taning booth and towels at the entrance of the gym for everyone's use
  
• every floor has it's own coffee station with the "works" - looks like a bar to me
• the cafeteria is called "EAt" - it had the same layout as a fancy restaurant (including a private party table/room)
• sound dampeners above the booths in the cafeteria so that you can eat, chat with friends or watch TV without having to listen to other people's conversations
  
• lounge areas that are etched with inspirational quotes and well designed furniture that is both esthetically appealing and ergonomically correct
  
• the conference rooms and some hallways have their own names. I was amused by the name of the hallway to IT Support - "damnation alley"
• vents on the floors that blew air upwards (no vents from the ceilings)
• large server room with each server in it's own casing (yes - only I was excited about this part of the tour)
  
• 2 large conference/movie/lecture halls that are equipped with ergo chairs and individual LAN ports (sorry...the geek in me couldn't help but notice)
• meeting rooms that have the 4 various game consoles (Xbox, Xbox 360, gamecube and Nintendo DS) mounted on the walls incase they need to demo games. They also have tables with built in polycom units (for those of us that attend lots of meetings - these units are very handy).
• an outdoor deck that has a spectacular view of the mountains (and of the soccer field)

Check out the pictures of the outside of the building. After touring the building Tanya and I contemplated what life would be like to work at such a location. They appear to cater to their employees - which is different from life at a crown corp! What to work there? Click here for job postings. After the tour we went out for coffee and chit chatted about life, etc. It was nice to just drink tea and relax with good friends.

birthday wishes

On Saturday we celebrated Shannan's 29th birthday at Whineo's - a restaurant on Granville. The restaurant was dark and in a strange location - not the most trendiest part of Granville Street. The atmosphere reminded me of Lucy Mae Brown's (another trendy restaurant downtown). Everyone had fun eating and talking with each other. The food was good eventhough it was more "quality" over "quantity". It's a tapas and wine sort of location. Here are the pictures from the party. Afterwards we went down to Calhoun's for some dessert. I think Calhoun is becoming a birthday tradition for Shannan as we went there last year as well.

Operation Clean Sweep

The focus this week at work has been "wellness". We had a couple of seminars on how to stay healthy and happy at work. :-) I was only in it for the gift-packages that they gave up (nothing like more Purell!). Yesterday we had "clean sweep" at work, it's an opportunity to spend a couple of hours cleaning out our department. We chased away the dust bunnies with an arsenal of cleaning supplies. Doing that made me think about the sanitary conditions at home. We're still in the middle of renovations so everything is covered in dust and dirt. My mom on top of that has had the flu and is likely spreading it to all the objects in the house. So what's better to do on a sunny saturday then to spend 4 hours cleaning!! Goodness gracious - I need a life! This house was a bigger task than I thought. I gathered my artillery of cleaning supplies, rubber gloves, garbage pail, swifter wet jet (which I just bought yesterday and really love using!) and last but not least is my MP3 player. By the time I finished vacuuming I was sweating - mental note to self...look into installing central vac. Then it was off to dusting, moping, moving furniture, etc. It's nearly 4pm and I'm satisified with the effort. Most of the rooms are sanitized. I even wiped down my window sills. All that's left is to apply Alex Plus to them to prevent mold from growing. Alex Plus is on sale (50% off) at Home Depot - if any of you are interested. Still have a lot of laundry to do - I'm trying to wash everything that my mom had her hands on. Living with a nurse also draws my attention to the need to sanitize. KA has dust allergies so she hides in the computer room when my dad is working on the house - as he's constantly sawing/drilling/sanding/painting something and it irritates her sinuses. But I should clean myself up and get ready for Shannan's birthday party tonight.

trivia time

I've decided to change the format of my blog a bit. Instead of doing those "weekly quotes" in the side bar, which I'm sure some of you don't even look at, I'm going to do "useless trivia". The quotes were fun but you aren't getting anything out of it (other than an opportunity to say "yes...that quote really does relate to my situation"). Since I like to banter about nonsense to basically anyone that is listening. I might as well educate you in the art of nonsense. :-) Who knows - maybe you'll impress a potential employer with the useless trivia, obtain a high paying job, become a millionaire and rule the world! Then I can say to the camera crew "it's all because he/she read my blog.." (with tears brimming in my eyes as the camera pans away from my face). :-) I'm looking for a new career as as screen writer - any takers?!

disaster planning

On Monday we had our annual evacuation drill. Since I enjoy being part of different committees - I'm also a "buddy" to my coworker who is in a motorize vehicle. The benefits to being a buddy is that you get to stay inside the nice, warm and dry building while the simulation is going on.

Unfortunately they wanted to make it "real" this time around. Chad and the 3 buddies (2 other guys in my department) went to the muster area and were told to go to the elevators to await instructions. The whole buiding was chaotic - alarm bells were ringing and ERT people were running around with walkie-talkies trying to get everyone organized. They try to make these simulations real so prior to the evacuation the did a simulation earthquake. I had to get off the phone and crawl under my desk. This is quite the feat as my desk is a warehouse for useless items such as plates, cutlery, shoes, etc. Not much room for me under my desk. In reality under my desk is probably more hazardous (with all the computer wires and bonking myself on the head as the desk is too low).

I got to experience many things on monday. I discovered that when the fast bells begin - the fire doors automatically close (one set nearly clipped me as I was leisurely walking through it). I wasn't fully into the simulation and took my time - taking pictures of people, etc.

One of the ERT members approached us and said that we would have to do a full evacuation - meaning that we would have to get Chad out of the building without his motorized chair. I groaned (as I had anticipated being in the building so I wore my heels that day). There were 2 wheelchair people that had to get out so we had a choice between the vinyl stretcher (which is basically like a tarp with holes along the edges for handles) or the evacu-track chair (a lounge chair with big army-tank-type treads built into it). Thank goodness Chad chose the chair as I don't think I would have been able to carry him down 5 flights of stairs in the stretcher (maybe if I had my runners and work out clothes on!). We've all been trained in using the evacu-track chair and it was a bit scary doing it with Chad inside (as we never subject him to our training exercises). Usually we strap each other in and go roaring down the stairways (crashing into corners and walls). :-) I've never had to be a "victim" yet (just a driver) - I don't trust the guys and their driving. The chair is fun - it's like a rollercoaster ride except you're whole body is strapped in and someone is pushing you down the stairs at a 45 degree angle. The system is backwards though - there's a "brake" on the contraption - but it only engages when you don't squeeze on it. I always want to sqeeze the brake to stop - but it only makes the tank-treads move faster. Duh! One of the guys said it would be easier to just do a fireman's lift-over-the-shoulder for Chad as he's only 120lbs (a much faster alternative). The other wheelchair person only had one of their buddies with them so he was at the mercy of the ERT members to carry him down in the stretcher. Everyone made it out in one piece. It was a good waste of 2 hours - nothing like having time off the phones!